He lifted his foot and looked again at the sole. There it was: a little pit about an eighth of an inch deep.
The colonel had explained it away easily enough, saying that he might possibly have stepped on a sharp rock. Wayne shook his head. He knew he wasn't nuts. But what the hell was going on?
There were no answers. But he knew that the eventual answer, when it came, would have something to do with the mystery of the Mavis's eight corpses.
It was late that afternoon when Sherri James came storming into the hospital sector. She was wearing a spacesuit, and she was brandishing a pass countersigned by Colonel Petersen himself. She was determined to enter.
"The medics didn't want to let me in," she explained. "But I told them I'd wear a spacesuit if it would make them any happier."
"Sherri! What the devil are you doing here?"
"I just wanted to check on you," she said. Her voice sounded oddly distorted coming over the speaker in the helmet. "You're supposed to have blown your wig or something. Did you?"
"No. Of course not."
"I didn't think so." She unscrewed her helmet quickly. "Listen, Peter, there's something funny going on aboard this ship."
"I've known that a long time," he said.